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2.15.2018

Whole30 | How Are We Holding Up?

Well... we are not. We Quit.That's right guys, unfortunately.. my husband and I did not make it through the entire Whole30 journey and you know what? I couldn't be happier about it! Back toward the end of December, my husband and I decided that we would try to tackle Whole30 mainly because we both agreed that we needed to take serious steps toward a healthier lifestyle. I've always had pretty bad eating habits and my husband has picked up on them over the years. Before we were even in the ball park of wanting to have children, we knew we needed to get our personal health together first. After reading up on Whole30, I felt like that would be the perfect "diet plan", I guess you could say, for us.

Now that I am on the other side of it and have been able to enjoy bread again and my delicious gummy candy, I have come to the conclusion that I will NEVER do Whole30 again. NEVER. And I truly mean that. Now, I realize some of you may be thinking that is a tad bit dramatic, and I'm serious, but I can't say I didn't have many MANY lessons I learned about myself along the way.

So, some of you may be wondering... what in the world is Whole30? Some may say that it is a diet plan that eliminates every food you love the most and you are forced to eat everything nasty, and I can't say I am in 100% disagreement with them on that! In a nutshell, Whole30 eliminates:

Sugar

Dairy

Grains

Legumes

Alcohol

LIFE

So yeah, when you initially read something like that, you're thinking "What the heck can I eat?!", and you have to be super creative to be even close to satisfied. The thing that made me feel like it was doable was the fact that we could still eat meat! Chicken is filling so I felt like sticking to a chicken and veggie meal each day would be easy and I mean, it was. There was just one HUGE problem... I need snacks. When I tell you I snack all day every day and healthy snacks are fine, but it was so hard to find Whole30 approved healthy snacks without nuts (I'm allergic). I was eating a lot of apples, grapes, and oranges, but it was only so much of that I wanted in a day. I tried drinking a lot of extra water to make myself full, but I still wasn't satisfied.

So what exactly did I learn from all of this?

Well, I learned SO much about what my body loves and hates. I'm actually super proud of my husband and I because we lasted a full two weeks before quitting. So after the first few days, I started noticing how much lighter I felt each day. I was no longer super gassy and bloated after eating and my skin was glowing! Another thing, I used to get a LOT of stomach aches/cramps. At least twice a week, I would be so sick to my stomach and I could never put my finger on exactly what was causing it. I didn't get one stomach ache during the whole two weeks and quite frankly I still haven't had any. My guess? DAIRY is the culprit. Even though we aren't doing the entire Whole30 plan anymore, I have tried my best to stand clear of dairy and I've been fine. I lost 5 pounds and my husband has lost 15 pounds, which I think is amazing! I have so much more energy, I've been exercising at home at least 4 times a week. All in all, I truly believe Whole30 WORKS.. we just really didn't want to do it anymore.

Want to know another thing I learned? I am so much more comfortable in the kitchen and I was actually enjoying making meals with my husband. We experimented a lot with different meals and we felt so accomplished once we would finish and the food was good. I'm not going to go as far to say that I've turned into Paula Deen or Betty Crocker, but I do plan to keep cooking healthy meals for us occasionally and trying new things in the kitchen. It wasn't bad at all!

Here's some of the meals we made:

Baked Buffalo Wings (Homemade Whole30 approved sauce)

Chicken and Broccoli Omelet

Grilled Chicken over Seasoned Zucchini Pasta

Baked Wings again with Whole30 Approved Buffalo Chicken Dip

Now, don't get me wrong. This post was not to discourage any of you from your Whole30 journey or from trying it at all because I promise you, it was working! My heart (and my husband's heart) just wasn't in it and I truly believe if your heart isn't in it, you won't make it. You have to meal prep, have self control, meditate, and just know you might want to strangle your significant other on many occasions because you just feel so deprived, but you have to feel dedicated and if I am being completely honest with myself, I wanted to do Whole30, but I also didn't (blame the Gemini in me). Anyway, if you're doing Whole30, GO YOU! Please don't give up! Finish out the 30 days and then keep those habits up girlfriend! I'm rooting for you all! :)

12 comments:

Love this post girl! I totally know what ya mean, I try to do something and then I just realize that sometimes you just can't do it and thats totally okay. It's great to do, to learn more about what your body likes / dislikes. Thanks for sharing!

I have a love hate relationship with the whole30! It's so much time & effort to plan out all of the meals, and not realistic to keep up with at all, but at the same time I totally loved the challenge & healthier lifestyle.

I feel you girl! I tried it about 8 years ago, and it just wasn't for me. There are great plusses to it, but didn't work for my personality type. It is enlightening on finding out what foods your body negatively responds to, and I thank it for that!

I"ve heard about Whole 30 from many bloggers but wasn't too sure about what it eliminated until now. Sounds like quite the commitment, hehe. Glad you guys stuck it out two weeks and like you said learned so much x

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